The door is opening for investors to bet on the digital front door in India.
The super app’s premise and promise is to provide a single point of entry (the front door) to a range of activities spanning everything from ridesharing to trading to financial management.
Bloomberg reported that Reliance Industries Ltd. plans to list its digital financial services division, Jio Financial Services — and a listing in Mumbai could follow this fall, the news outlet said, citing “people familiar with the matter”.
Reliance Industries, the parent company of mobile network Jio, which is also involved in retail, oil and textiles, would effectively “de-merge” the financial services operation, freeing investors to focus on fintechs in general and digital lending in particular.
The move isn’t entirely surprising given that Reliance announced last year that it was tackling the fork. In a statement last fall, billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who heads the multinational conglomerate, said Jio Financial would operate as “a technology-led company that delivers financial products digitally, leveraging Reliance’s nationwide omni-channel footprint of consumer businesses.”
And in that statement, we find, lies evidence of the super app’s appeal and continued development. Looking at the company’s most recent results, Reliance saw its subscriber base grow 7.1% to more than 439 million for the March quarter, while churn remained steady at 2%. The installed base provides a solid foundation – a connected marketplace – for consuming devices and data across channels, in-store, online and financial services development. In its annual report, the company notes that offering connectivity and 4GE LTE services is a stepping stone to the “digital transformation” that encompasses payments and finance, as well as commerce. Specifically, Jio Financial Services would operate in the lending, wealth management and insurance segments.
The current financial services offerings reach around 20 million consumers, according to the company. Jio Payments Bank is a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, which in turn is owned by Reliance, and ties savings to a range of activities; JioMoney is the Indian mobile wallet that can be used to load funds from cards or bank accounts which then facilitate online or in-store purchases. We have highlighted the digital transformation in India’s financial services industry in other coverage where, for example, pre-approved lines of credit are linked to the United Payments Interface (UPI). Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India said these “pre-approved” lines of credit could be issued directly and digitally through UPI at banks.
A global hug
The super app model is widely accepted around the world. As PYMNTS and PayPal found in the Super Apps for the Super Connected study late last year, more than 9,000 consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Germany signaled a willingness to use their apps for shopping, health care management and behavior to use transactions with financial institutions. This data is extrapolated to a massive audience – 96 million users would be global active users of the super app and would literally hit the ground running on day one.
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